We have spoken so far of only one factor in that process--namely, the democratisation of the English people which is in progress and the blurring of the lines between the classes. Co-operating with this are other forces. Just as the most well-bred persons can afford on occasions to be most careless of their manners--just as only an old-established aristocracy can be truly reckless of the character of new associates whom it may please to take up--so it may be that the well-educated man, confident of his impeccability and altogether off his guard, more readily absorbs into his daily speech cant phrases and even solecisms than the half-educated who is ever watchful lest he slip. The American has a way of writing, figuratively, with a dictionary at his elbow and a grammar within reach. There are few educated Englishmen who do not consider their own authority--the authority drawn from their school and university training--superior to that of any dictionary or grammar, especially of any American one.[220:1] So it has come about that, while the tendency of the American people is constantly to become more exact and more accurate in its written and spoken speech, the English tendency is no less constantly towards a growing laxity; and while the American has been sternly and conscientiously at work pruning the inelegancies out of his language, the Briton has been lightheartedly taking these same inelegancies to himself. It is obviously impossible that such a twofold tendency can go on for long without the gulf between the quality of the respective languages becoming appreciably narrower. * * * * *